


I'm a Liar

by PrincessBethoc



Category: Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (TV 2018)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Zelda Spellman Needs A Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-15
Updated: 2020-01-15
Packaged: 2021-02-27 03:27:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22260307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrincessBethoc/pseuds/PrincessBethoc
Summary: "But I can't get home and I live down the street; there's a park full of weirdos looking at me...Wrap your hand around the back of my head; I'm a liar, I'm whatever you said; there's a fire in you that gets me all upset; and I'll bring up the past while you try and touch my leg." ~ 'I'm a Liar' (Amy Shark)
Relationships: Hilda Spellman & Zelda Spellman, Zelda Spellman & Mary Wardwell | Madam Satan | Lilith
Comments: 9
Kudos: 46





	I'm a Liar

**Author's Note:**

> Mentions of non-con/rape ahead.

Haze.

It was all a haze of drink and power and fear.

The truth wasn’t true, and yet here she was.

The High Priestess stumbled through the road that led to her home.

Her home. Her family. Love and kindness and loyalty.

And yet along this road, she could sense him follow her. His footsteps drew near behind her and the air moved as he did. Faustus Blackwood stalked her. She had no idea where he was, and his daughter and her nephew were out looking for him, but he stalked her all the same.

The coven – what was left of it – saw High Priestess Zelda Spellman. She looked for a purpose, for a way for them all to survive, for a set of beliefs to which they could relate.

But High Priestess Zelda Spellman had lost everything. She lost her religion. She lost her brother. She lost her marriage. She lost Leticia. She almost lost her family. She was almost sure she had lost her mind. When she turned to watch her back, she saw him skulk in the shadows. As she looked around to the road ahead, she could see the outlines of those boys he used as henchmen, so willing to take her to him.

“Satan help me,” she whispered frantically.

It was then that she remembered that Satan had stripped her of her faith. A faithless High Priestess: the very idea was contemptible.

To whom could she pray now?

Vulgar as she had always considered it to be, Zelda put the whiskey bottle to her mouth and begged it for her sanity.

Her niece needed her. So did her sister and her coven…how could they rely upon a creature so wretched?

Words fell into her ears on the wind. Whispered fantasies and murmured vows of matrimony. The words of the Caligari spell seemed to read like a script before her eyes, burning through the dark night until she could hear them too.

No, that was not true. He did not do that to her. That could not have happened.

Droplets of rain collided with her face, one by one, faster and faster until it seemed every drop of rain the sky had to give fell together. Bottle still in hand, she clumsily wiped the water from her eyes and the soaked hair from her face. With a glance over her shoulder, she was certain he stood at her back.

She turned, bottle drawn high over her head. His face. His face shone white in the blackness. “Zelda,” he hissed. “My wife, my traitor.”

“ _You_ are the traitor, Faustus Blackwood,” she drunkenly snarled. “Your own coven, you pathetic excuse of a man!”

“Yes, Zelda, _my_ coven. Mine! Another thing you have stolen from me!”

“You tried to murder them!”

“You have taken the Church of Judas and created a monstrosity from its remains!”

“Lilith!” shouted Zelda. “The Church of Lilith!”

A deafening, guttural snarl spat its way from his mouth. His hands wrapped themselves around her wrists. The bottle fell from her hand onto the wet road. “My wife will do as she is bid!” he roared. “I will take from her what I am owed, Caligari spell or none!”

Her entire body trembled.

It was true.

He had taken her free will.

The truth was true.

“Zelda?” a familiar but unexpected voice called out.

He disappeared into nothing. She fell backwards into the mud, rain pounding into her skin like tiny rocks sent to cut her very soul open.

Through the rain, Zelda watched a figure approach. Smaller, more feminine, than the one that had just vanished, it carried with it caution and confidence. It was only when there was a distance of mere feet between them that she realised who was walking towards her: Lilith.

For a moment, Lilith stood silently over Zelda, as though taking in the shambolic mess before her. She soon extended her hand, though – an offer of the help for which she had called to Satan. Zelda hesitated, unsure she deserved this. Eventually, she took Lilith’s hand, picked up the whiskey bottle from the mud, and let herself be helped to her feet.

“Who were you shouting at?” Lilith asked.

“Faustus Blackwood,” Zelda replied. “Didn’t you see him? Didn’t you _hear_ him?”

“I did not.” She looked down at the bottle in Zelda’s hand. “I think you have had enough of that for one night, don’t you?”

Zelda looked down at the bottle, too; Lilith’s hand crept over hers, gently grappling the bottle from her grasp. She did not fight it.

Behind Lilith, he remained. He lurked in the dark.

Lilith must have caught her looking; she turned and searched the darkness herself. “There’s nothing there, Zelda,” she said calmly. “It’s just me. Lilith. Just me.”

But Zelda continued to stare through Lilith. He moved slowly, a wolf hunting his prey.

A hand wrapped itself around the back of Zelda’s head. Lilith’s hand. Soft and earnest, taking nothing. “Zelda!” she said. “Look at me!”

The urgency rang in Zelda’s ears. That, rather than the fear of what prowled through the night, took her breath away. It was Lilith’s intensity that brought Zelda to tears, if not to Earth. And so Zelda looked at Lilith. Her face did not glow in the dark. No inhuman snarl left her body. “He was here.”

“Who?”

“Faustus. Faustus Blackwood.”

“He was not here,” Lilith said gently. “He was there.” Her free hand was pressed lightly against the temple of Zelda’s head. “It’s little wonder he is burned into your mind, considering what he did to you.”

Zelda looked over Lilith’s shoulder once more, and then over her own. He was gone.

“I’m losing my mind.”

“You are not losing your mind. You are still Zelda Spellman. You will always be Zelda Spellman.”

With nothing else she could say, Zelda murmured, “Please take me home.”

“Of course.”

They journeyed in silence through the rain, the wind, and the mud. The front porch was lit. Hilda waited on the other side of the door. Sabrina watched from the top of the stairs. “Don’t let her see me like this,” Zelda hissed to her sister.

Hilda turned to Sabrina, who stood in her nightdress, and said, “Go back to bed, Sabrina, love. Your Auntie Zee’s alright.” Sabrina did not move. “You’re okay, aren’t you, Zelda?” Hilda added, prompting Zelda to answer her.

“Yes,” Zelda managed to get out. “Yes, I am fine. I simply got caught in the rain. There’s no need to worry, Sabrina.”

Sabrina came down the stairs regardless. Next to Hilda, she stared into Zelda’s face. “You’re a liar,” she said. There was no accusation there; the words came with a love and a kindness that startled Zelda. Sabrina stretched up and kissed Zelda’s cheek. “Look after her, won’t you?” she asked of Hilda and Lilith.

“Of course we will,” Hilda replied. “Back to bed, darling.”

Trusting the care of her aunt to the two witches, Sabrina went back up the stairs. Zelda heard the bedroom door close.

“Thank you,” she muttered.

Hilda rubbed Zelda’s arm gently, and said to Lilith, “You get her into a warm bath, and I’ll make her a calming tea.”

Zelda didn’t fight. She didn’t know if she could ever fight anything again.

“Alright,” Lilith said. She put her arm around Zelda’s waist and guided her slowly up the stairs to the bathroom.

“I don’t need a nanny.”

“I’m following orders.”

Zelda could not withhold the snort that statement elicited. “You? Following orders? My sister’s orders?”

Lilith rolled her eyes as she turned the bath taps on. “Come on,” she sighed, “let’s get you out of those wet clothes.” She reached up to unbutton Zelda’s dress, but Zelda flinched. She could not help herself. There was something about it that bothered her. “It’s alright. I won’t hurt you.”

Reluctantly, with terror in her heart, Zelda nodded and allowed Lilith’s fingers to begin their work. She was too drunk to manage it herself – even she was aware of that. “Sabrina is right,” Zelda mumbled.

“About what?”

“I’m a liar.”

“We are all liars to some extent, are we not?”

“My entire personality is a lie.”

“It’s not. You’re still Zelda Spellman.”

“I’m not.”

“You are,” Lilith assured her sincerely. “You tell only two lies. One to yourself and one to the rest of the world.”

“What are they?”

“The first is that you endured no trauma.”

Zelda did not have any answer to that. No answer that would not break her, at any rate. “And the second?”

“The second is that you are coping with that trauma.”

Lilith took Zelda by the hand and helped her into the bath. The warmth of the water washed over her frozen skin. It was a relief. Her muscles eased up, and she let Lilith come to her with a sponge and wash the mud from her hands. She had not known she was shivering until she stopped.

Hilda appeared at the door with a teacup and saucer. She passed it over to Zelda. “Here you go, Zelds, my love,” she said kindly. “This should make you feel a little bit better. Might even sober you up!”

“Thank you.”

The tea was sweet after a night tasting only alcohol. Hilda sat next to Lilith and took the sponge. She gently began to wash the dirt from Zelda’s legs. Zelda searched her skin for a bruise. A scrape. A cut. A scar. Anything that would validate the feeling of violation that burned so deep into her bones. There wasn’t a single mark. Not on her skin, at least.

Why would there have been a mark? She had cooperated. She had held him passionately while inside she screamed in defiance. There might have been a mark weeks ago, but she had agreed to it. She had consented.

She had consented.

No.

No. How could she have consented when she had no free will?

If she had been free, she would not have consented. The whole thing was non-consensual.

And sex without consent was…well, it was rape. It was forbidden. It was forbidden because it was traumatic to endure.

“He hurt me,” she whispered, the last of her tea trickling down her throat. Hilda was right; she felt more sober. More like herself.

“We know, Zelds,” Hilda told her quietly. “We know.” She took to washing Zelda’s hair.

Zelda watched Lilith carefully. She, the Queen of Hell, had come to Zelda’s aid. Did she know what bubbled beneath the surface? The shame and the anguish that came with losing her free will? Hilda knew – she always knew – but did Lilith? Did everyone else? Did they see through that second lie?

“Okay,” Hilda said, her tone bright. “All warm and clean! I’ll just take this downstairs.” She took the empty cup and saucer from Zelda and left her alone with Lilith.

There was a darkness in Lilith’s face that frightened Zelda. It screamed that she knew what it was to be suppressed and dominated, to be a slave to a man. She didn’t need to say it. Neither of them needed to.

Lilith got to her feet and took a large, soft towel to the bath. Sober enough to stand up with less assistance, Zelda stepped out of the bath; Lilith wrapped the towel around her. “Why did you come for me?” she finally asked of Lilith.

“You called for me,” Lilith said simply.

Zelda frowned. She had shouted Lilith’s name, but only in her argument with Faustus. But Faustus was never there, was he? All Lilith found was Zelda, drunk and alone in the night, yelling for her. As Lilith tucked the towel into itself under Zelda’s arm, she took the Queen’s wrist. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

“And I am sorry for tonight.”

“That’s a new one,” she replied, though she did it with a smile.

Zelda could not argue with that; she rarely apologised, even when it was rightly owed. “Perhaps I do need to say it more often.”

This time, it was Lilith who let out a short chuckle. “That won’t happen,” she half-laughed.

“What makes you say that?”

“You’re still Zelda Spellman.”


End file.
